 Hello and welcome to the International Daily Roundup by People's Dispatch, where we bring you some of the major news developments from across the world, our headlines. Republican states in the US eased lockdowns, despite warnings by public health experts. WHO calls on the US to reconsider its move to halt funding, warns of a longer battle against the pandemic. Trump says that US Navy has been instructed to destroy Iranian vessels that supposedly harrass US ships. Germany announces sweeping measures to protect workers' wages. We begin with our daily update on the COVID-19 pandemic. The number of cases has crossed over 2.64 million with over 184,000 deaths reported. In the US, which continues to be the worst affected, political divisions go on as Republican party state governors have decided to ease restrictions. South Carolina, Georgia and several southern states have already eased restrictions on most businesses, much ahead of the time stipulated by public health experts. A similar move is expected in Ohio as well, which revealed earlier today that they will come out with a plan in the next few days to open the economy. Public health experts have warned that restrictions on businesses and public movement needs to continue at least till the first week of June in 12 states, including South Carolina, Georgia and Ohio. Many critics of this move, including the Democratic governor of New York, have raised fears of a second wave of infections if the easing of restrictions happens to politically to political interests. Even President Donald Trump, while appreciating his party's governor, said that Georgia's lifting of its lockdown was a little too early. Since last week, the federal government led by Donald Trump and Republican himself and various Democratic party governors have been at loggerheads over plans to reopen the economy. Despite widespread public support for the lockdown measures, right-wing and conservative groups and the Republican party have made it a political platform against Democrats. Michigan governor Gretchen Wittmer has also announced that a plan will be shortly revealed on lifting the state home orders. That those debris issues, the director general of the World Health Organization, has called on the U.S. to reconsider its stand-on withdrawing support for the U.N. agency. The U.S. has recently declared that it will halt all payments to the WHO over allegations of it being China-centric pending a review. The accusations have been widely condemned both within and outside the U.S., with many arguing that the Trump administration was trying to distract from their mistakes in handling the issue. Gabriel Suze warned that the virus will affect humanity for a long time to come. He also warned that there is a worrying upward trend in outbreaks in different parts of the world, and that the virus will be with us for a long time. He insisted again on the need for international cooperation in fighting the pandemic and for the U.S. to come on board on global efforts at containment. The statement by the U.N. head came in response to the U.S. government agency USAID, which was the biggest source of funding for the WHO, initiating an investigation of the U.N. agency. USAID will be investigating the supposed delay of the WHO in warning the U.S. and other countries and their lapses in dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak. Other allies of the U.S., including Australia, have raised similar accusations against the WHO and China. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also echoed Gabriel Suze's call for international cooperation in solidarity. At the same time, he also warned of political actors trying to use the pandemic to further autocratic and repressive policies. He also raised cautions about the rise in hate speech, targeting of minorities across the world, and a general tendency towards social strife being witnessed across the world in the name of battling the virus. Apart from targeting the WHO and China, the U.S. is also continuing its belligerence in the Middle East. Yesterday, Trump tweeted that the U.S. Navy has been instructed to shoot down and destroy any Iranian vessels that may supposedly harass U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf. The statement comes on the same day as Iran launched its first military reconnaissance satellite in space. Though Trump has not specified any incident that may have triggered the message, the U.S. had recently condemned the Iranian satellite launch. According to reports, senior U.S. officials from the Defense Department have denied any change in rules of engagement with Iran in the West-East Asia, but insisted that the tweet was just a warning to the country. The spokesperson of the Iranian Armed Forces retorted to the tweet, pointing out that the U.S. military should be more concerned about a COVID-19 outbreak among its troops in Iraq than bullying smaller countries. The German government today announced a package to protect all employees' wages and to provide tax relief to small businesses to help them from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The parties of the ruling coalition led by Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU CSU and the leaders of the Social Democratic Party negotiated the details of the package late on Wednesday night before it was announced today. The package is mainly about low-income workers in small businesses such as catering and other hospitality sectors. According to the package, those workers who are forced to sit at home and have seen up to 50% reduction in their work hours will get 77% of their total net income if they still do not get a job for a full working hours after 4 months. They are currently paid about 60-67% of their total income. Those who still need relief after 7 months will receive up to 87% of their income. The package also announced reduction in the rates of value added taxes for small businesses from the current 19% to 77%. The new rates will be effective till June 30th, 2021. The current package will be worth more than US$10 billion. This will be in addition to more than US$800 billion relief package announced previously in March. Meanwhile, in the rare positive outcome of the pandemic, an annual commemoration of Croatian Nazi collaborators had to be cancelled by the organizers due to the outbreak. The event, to honour the Ustasek troops that had allied with Nazi Germany during the Second World War, was scheduled for March 16th in Austria's Bleiburg by right-wing forces in Croatia. It was strongly opposed by progressive sections, leftists and the Jewish community in the region, with a call to ban all such events that celebrate the fascists. Even though the opposition did not have much of an impact, the outbreak of COVID-19 in central Europe forced the cancellation of the event. In our infocus section, we take a look at the steep decline in oil prices and their impact on the economy. That's all we have in this episode of the International Daily Roundup. To know more about these stories, visit our website peoplesdispatch.org and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Thanks for watching.